Wedge LIVE!
172 episodes - English - Latest episode: 6 days ago - ★★★★★ - 34 ratingsA show about Minneapolis politics from the maker of Wedge LIVE, the award winning local news website.
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Episodes
Nick Kor, candidate for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 7
June 29, 2021 12:13 - 1 hour - 72.4 MBJohn is joined by co-host Pine, a Senior Political Analyst who is currently managing the only citywide DFL endorsed campaign in Minneapolis. After some co-host banter, Nick Kor arrives for a conversation about his run for the Ward 7 seat on the Minneapolis City Council. We talk about the political geography of Ward 7 (East of Hennepin Ave vs. West of Hennepin Ave). How do you convince the apartment dwellers of Ward 7 the stakes are high enough that they should come out and vote in a city ele...
The Wedge LIVE Election Year Halftime Show Conventional Wisdom Spectacular!!!
June 22, 2021 14:08 - 1 hour - 84.1 MBJohn is joined by Jason Garcia and Taylor Dahlin to dole out conventional wisdom on everything that's happened through the first half of the 2021 election year in Minneapolis. Did Mayor Jacob Frey really win by losing, as traditional media personalities would have you believe? Will the city council swing conservative or progressive? We can help you interpret the meaning behind DFL endorsements and non-endorsements across the city. Later in the show we're joined by Jacob Garcia and Dr. Melody...
Fixing Lyndale (And All the Rest of Our Terrible, Unlivable, Deadly Streets)
June 16, 2021 12:44 - 55 minutes - 51.4 MBJohn is joined by guests Ash Narayanan and Elissa Schufman to talk about what's wrong with Minneapolis streets and how to fix them. Ash is educated as a civil and traffic engineer, but decided to use those powers for good, as the executive director of Our Streets Minneapolis. Our Streets is an organization that "works for a city where biking, walking, and rolling are easy and comfortable for everyone." Elissa (who is also a board member at Our Streets) has a day job in transportation advocac...
PARK BOARD EPISODE! with Becky Alper and Tom Olsen
June 08, 2021 10:32 - 1 hour - 65.2 MBJohn is secretly very tired of talking to candidates for Minneapolis Park Board, so he combined two of them into one episode, just to get this over with quicker. Becky Alper (beckyforparks.org) is running in district 3 and Tom Olsen (olsenforparks.org) running citywide at-large. We talk about parkways and how to use them. John maintains that not even the biggest automobile enthusiast goes to a park to experience the sights and sounds of car traffic. Tom talks about his ideas for reallocating...
Reimagining Public Safety with Asma Mohammed Nizami
June 03, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 62.9 MBJohn is joined by co-host Jason Garcia for a conversation about public safety and election year politics with guest Asma Mohammed Nizami. Topics for co-host banter include the conservative effort to quickly build out an array of new organization to match progressive political infrastructure in Minneapolis; an update to the Wedge LIVE endorsements venn diagram and voter guide; the Yellow Pages; John recalls the time he was named one of the 100 People to Know in 2020 by the prestigious Twin Ci...
Eric Moran, candidate for Minneapolis Park Board in District 2
June 01, 2021 12:00 - 40 minutes - 37.9 MBJohn talks to Eric Moran, who's running to represent North Minneapolis (and a tiny part of the North Loop neighborhood) on the Minneapolis Park Board. Eric says he's running a campaign focused on both physical and digital access to the parks system and its government. With recent news of Minneapolis dropping in the ranking of best urban parks systems (based on the percentage of people who live within a 10 minute walk to a park), John asks what can be done to increase the number of people who...
Operation Safety What?
May 28, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 82.2 MBA year after George Floyd's murder by four Minneapolis police officers, rising rates of violent crime (locally and across the country) have created a backlash to the backlash. Demands for a new system of public safety have been met with calls for more police from a reinvigorated law-and-order political coalition. John and co-host Jason Garcia speak with Logan Carroll about his story in the Minnesota Reformer, uncovering coordination between Mayor Frey, Chief Arradondo, and a newly formed pro...
Kate Knuth, candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis
May 06, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 75.6 MBJohn is joined by guest co-host PeggySue Imihy. The guest is Kate Knuth, candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. We start the show by playing PeggySue's theme song. Then we poke fun at a rival podcast host. John expresses disappointment in PeggySue's late decision to become a city delegate and reveals he takes pleasure in the pain of Ward 10 candidate David Wheeler. Kate and PeggySue bond over their shared heritage in the suburbs of NE Minneapolis. John asks Kate if she thought she'd ever run fo...
Sheila Nezhad, candidate for Mayor of Minneapolis
May 04, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 72.3 MBJohn is joined by guest co-host Jason Garcia, and they begin by chatting about the state of the race for mayor. Then, a conversation with Sheila Nezhad, candidate for mayor of Minneapolis. Sheila's a policy organizer with Reclaim the Block, who's spent the past few years pushing Minneapolis elected officials to divert funding away from police into alternative approaches to public safety. What does Sheila think of Mayor Frey's fear-based framing of the 2020 election? What would a potential de...
DFL Caucus Data Dump with Conrad Zbikowski
May 02, 2021 11:00 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBMinneapolis DFL caucus registration closed on April 30, so we're checking in with data wizard (and cat tour cinematographer) Conrad Zbikowski for an early look at the results. Over 10,000 people registered -- 3,000 of them in the final two days. 4,500 yet-to-be-confirmed caucus registrants have until midnight on May 7 to input the security code mailed to their home address. We don't know who has the most supporters or who the delegates are. The actual endorsement won't be decided until June....
Where Will They Park?
April 27, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 57.9 MBParking has an impact on everything from the environment to housing affordability to public health to foreign policy. John talks with two people excited that the city of Minneapolis is about to eliminate car parking minimums once and for all. Linnea Goderstad's concerns about climate change led her to join up with Neighbors for More Neighbors, and work to move us away from the car-centric way cities are built and designed. Chris Meyer is a Minneapolis Parks Commissioner and member of the Pla...
Risa Hustad, candidate for Minneapolis Park Board in District 6
April 23, 2021 12:00 - 53 minutes - 50 MBJohn interviews Risa Hustad, who once led him into danger on Lyndale Avenue. Risa is running for Minneapolis Park Board in District 6 (southwest Minneapolis). Because the Minneapolis Park Board is the meanest level of municipal government, John challenges Risa to "prove to us you're not a malignant personality." Topics include Burger King, Lake Chipotle, Embers family restaurant, keeping pollution out of our lakes, park accessibility, encampments, and park police. What does it mean for somet...
Steve Fletcher, Minneapolis City Council Member in Ward 3
April 20, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 79.7 MBOur guest is Steve Fletcher, who represents Ward 3 on the Minneapolis City Council. In the wake of the police killing of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, we talk about how to break the cycle, the need for a new system of public safety, and Steve's work fleshing out what that looks like in Minneapolis. John bemoans a year of crime and safety politics that haven't made sense, and worries that we're going to get really good at declaring states of emergency and deploying soldiers to street corn...
Mike Norton, candidate for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 13
April 15, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 68.6 MBJohn is joined by co-host Pine, who is unreasonably excited about the opportunity to interview Ward 13 candidate Mike Norton. Pine's connection to Ward 13 consists entirely of finding the name Palmisano on a mailbox during a visit to Italy. Norton is an award-winning business leader who was once falsely accused of being a media mogul by a crime-themed Facebook page. He tells us he he felt compelled to run because nobody else was willing, and Ward 13 deserves a choice in 2021. But his policy ...
BIG HUGE MINNEAPOLIS ENDORSEMENTS
April 12, 2021 09:00 - 1 hour - 66.3 MB2021 election season is underway in Minneapolis! In a conversation continued from our previous episode, Taylor, Jason, and John give their endorsements for Mayor and City Council (note: only John's endorsements are approved by the Wedge LIVE editorial board). Check out John's written endorsements at wedgelive.com/caucus. To have a say in the virtual Minneapolis DFL endorsement process, register to caucus and become a delegate at caucus.dfl.org -- now through the end of April. This year's pro...
Taylor Dumps Norm Coleman
April 09, 2021 11:00 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBWe're joined by Taylor, Simon the cat, and arena announcer (former Meatjacker) Jason Garcia. As we prepare for our upcoming Big Huge Endorsements episode (next episode), we talk about Taylor's teenage crush, former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, and her bizarre encounter with him at the State Fair. Taylor reports on a string of Minneapolis meat thefts over the years. I challenge Taylor and Jason to defend the mean tweets they direct at Mayor Frey. All three of us talk about the experiences ...
Elliott Payne, candidate for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 1
April 05, 2021 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46.8 MBA conversation with Elliott Payne, who's running for Minneapolis City Council in Ward 1. We ask Elliott about his time with the Minneapolis office of Performance and Innovation, public safety, transportation, why change needs a champion at city hall, and what he thinks about a proposal to restructure Minneapolis government to strengthen the mayor's office at the expense of the city council. John asks Elliott why he's potentially disrupting his life to run for office during hard times. Elliot...
PeggySue Reads the Tweets
April 03, 2021 23:01 - 25 minutes - 23.5 MBCo-host PeggySue Imihy joins me, as we prepare to interview Minneapolis City Council candidate Elliott Payne. PeggySue is originally from Columbia Heights but didn't let that stop her from usurping the throne of Miss Northeast Minneapolis. She's put that life behind her and is now interviewing powerbrokers and narrating tweets on a podcast (in addition to a blossoming urban planning career). The best co-hosts make sure their partner is prepared, so I tease PeggySue about the extensive Google...
It's Caucus Season! with Devin Hogan, the Minneapolis DFL Chair
March 30, 2021 09:10 - 1 hour - 59.2 MBMinneapolis DFL Chair Devin Hogan is here to talk about the 2021 virtual caucus and convention process. I ask Devin what it feels like to get yelled at for fun, and how it felt to have Mayor Frey and a number of other City Council candidates try to cancel the work they'd put into having an endorsement process this year. This year, the process is virtual which may increase participation. In a normal year, as a delegate, it could land you in a school auditorium for 10 hours. Why do we do thi...
BET WTF? with Christa Moseng
March 25, 2021 07:40 - 43 minutes - 40.3 MBChrista Moseng is a career public servant and first time candidate running for the Minneapolis Board of Estimate & Taxation. The BET is a line on your ballot that may have confused you in prior years. I ask Christa to explain what the BET does and why she's qualified for this obscure role. We talk about the two elected members of the BET, their conservative approach, and what role ideology should play on a body with such limited scope. I ask Christa what it means that she has a .bet domain n...
Wedgie and the Meatjacker (and the Failed Microphone)
March 22, 2021 05:26 - 1 hour - 70.7 MBMy microphone failed, but that didn't stop me from talking to Jason Garcia for 75 minutes. If you don't enjoy this episode's low quality, we know who to blame. It's Jason's fault for single-handedly wrangling 40+ subscribers during the week of the Wedge LIVE Pledge Drive. It has forced me into the podcasting business. Jason's from a small town, the kind of place that teaches you the value of bullying the mayor. Jason talks about bringing that attitude to Minneapolis, mopping the floor with...
Coming Soon: The Wedge LIVE Podcast!
March 05, 2021 05:47 - 36 seconds - 869 KBTired of having local news delivered through your eyeballs? Open your ear holes for the Wedge LIVE podcast. Join host John Edwards, a less compelling version of Chuck Todd, for hard hitting interviews with newsmakers and power brokers. This is just like the tweets, only worse, and harder to digest. Coming soon!